Canadian media turn on corrupt hunger-striking Indian chief as tribe threatens reporter with arrest

Last Thursday we introduced you to Chief Theresa Spence, the leader of Canada’s Attawapiskat First Nation, who is on a hunger strike demanding a meeting with the Prime Minister. The Canadian media fawned over her, along with the “Idle No More” Aboriginal protest movement that adopted her as a symbol.

However, Canadian conservative commentator Ezra Levant took a different tack, courageously exposing Spence’s absurd mismanagement of millions of dollars in federal funds for her tribe. While crowing to the national media about how her tribe lives in third-world conditions, it appeared that Spence and her boyfriend were siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars sent to remedy the crisis — or at the very least grossly mismanaging their money.

At the time, Levant was dismissed as a heartless racist while Spence was treated like the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi. Less than a week later, Levant seems vindicated as Spence’s house of cards comes crashing down around her. Yesterday, an audit was released showing gross mismanagement of the tribe’s funds, and today the tribe responded to the increasing scrutiny by banning media from the reservation and threatening one TV reporter with arrest. Suddenly, the adoring media became much less friendly. Dawna Friesen is the anchor of the evening news on the Global News channel, and she tweeted a lot of information as reporter Jen Tryon was expelled from tribal lands by territory police.

.@RealMattHopkins Local police. Threatened to charge her with breach of peace and/or trespassing

The video in that story is amazing, by the way. The reporter is literally only a few feet off of the Attawapiskat reserve, and says the acting chief is standing a few feet away from her to make sure that she leaves.

@taniad09 Jen is a reporter, not a victim. And she didn't barge in. She was threatened with arrest before speaking to anyone.